Even if you’re new to the rock music history, it takes very little research to realize that Ritchie Blackmore has always been pretty difficult to work with. As years went by, things only got worse. Be it Deep Purple or Rainbow, it always seemed to go sour after a while.
In 2016, Blackmore brought back Rainbow again. However, there was not a single classic member in the band except for him. Needless to say, this caused controversy among rock fans and even famous musicians.
Joe Lynn Turner would have been a great choice for a singer. After all, he did participate in recording three studio albums with Rainbow, as well as one with Deep Purple. But instead, Ronnie Romero was chosen as the lead vocalist for the 2016 “reunion.”
In a recent chat with Rock of Nations, Turner discussed a potential real reunion of Rainbow with some of the classic members in there, including him. He said (transcript via Ultimate Guitar):
“Well, man, I tried to do that already. Blackmore did the reunion — you know, that ‘reunion’; call it what you want — we were in discussions about having everybody that was in Rainbow together for an extravaganza.“
“I mean, anybody who was still alive, and even paying tribute to [Ronnie James] Dio and everything, and trying to get ’em all in one place at one time, do a two-and-a-half-hour show at least, an authentic Rainbow reunion.“
“And it just got squashed down by his management and everything else. I mean, Live Nation showed up. I had a documentary, a 3D documentary, like the Guns N’ Roses — same guy, Barry Summers, who did that; he’s a good friend of mine — and it just fell on deaf ears.“
“And that reunion became — I don’t know what it was, really, because it really wasn’t a reunion of anything. There was nobody in Rainbow before who was there. It was Blackmore’s Night, really, with a new singer. That was it.”
“There’s a lot of people that loved Rainbow but they were too young to go to the concerts or they never saw them live, and this would have been the chance for those people – and I have a lot of people in my own family like this — that wanted to go see Rainbow but really see Rainbow. And that was not it.“
“That was, in my opinion — I’ve already said it’s a cheap imitation, a weak cheap imitation of… I don’t know, man. I don’t even know what to call it. It was a trainwreck for me. I think he damaged the legacy that way of Rainbow. ‘Cause Rainbow was a fabulous band from start to finish.”
Photo: kitmasterbloke (Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow headlining the Stone Free 2017 Festival at the O2 (34994158240))
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